Altia-ABM chases financial fraudsters out of the shadows

Altia-ABM chases financial fraudsters out of the shadows

The adage goes, if you want to find a criminal, follow the money. Altia-ABM is a software company that specialises in doing just that. It can track transactions through thousands of documents, finding buried information and ill-gotten gains.

“Police forces, governments and tax authorities all over the world use us to to assist them with complex financial investigations,” says Ian Watson, managing director of Altia-ABM. “The end game of our software is to provide the evidence to build up a robust criminal case.”

Watson can't talk about the cases that his company has helped the police to solve, but says it has been used for “some big economic crime investigations and tracked NHS fraud.”

The Glasgow-based business has recently opened an office in Canada to capitalise on the international opportunity.

“Our software was designed for use in the UK, and the UK's police and criminal investigations are seen as a gold standard in the world,” says Watson. “We're now focusing on Europe and the Commonwealth.”

The business, which will turn over £5m in 2017, is currently growing at 25pc a year.